Charles C. W. Cooke:
Herewith, an under-asked question for our friends on the progressive left: “Has Donald Trump’s remarkable rise done anything to change your mind as to the ideal strength of the State?”
I make this inquiry because, for a long while now, I have been of the view that the only thing that is likely to join conservatives and progressives in condemnation of government excess is the prospect that that excess will benefit the Right. Along with their peculiar belief that History takes “sides” and that improvement is inexorable and foreordained, most progressives hold as an article of faith that, because it is now a “consolidated democracy,” the United States is immune from the sort of tyranny of which conservatives like to warn. As such, progressives tend not to buy the argument that a government that can give you everything you want is also a government that can take it all away. For the past four or five years, conservatives have offered precisely this argument, our central contention being that it is a bad idea to invest too much power in one place because one never knows who might enjoy that power next. And, for the past four or five years, these warnings have fallen on deaf, derisive, overconfident ears.
The case that the Right’s cynics have made is a broad one: Inter alia, we have argued that Congress ought to reclaim much of the legal authority that it has willingly ceded to the executive, lest that executive become unresponsive or worse; that, once abandoned, constitutional limits are difficult to resuscitate; that federalism leads not just to better government but to a diminished likelihood that bad actors will be able to inflict widespread damage; and, perhaps most important of all, that far from being a vestige of times past, the Second Amendment remains a vital protection upon which free men may fall should their government turn to iron. In most cases, the reactions to these submissions have been identical: That we are skeptical of power only because we dislike Barack Obama, and that this skepticism will vanish upon the instant when he is replaced by a leader that we prefer.
This response, I’m afraid to say, is entirely miscast. In fact, we have taken these positions because, like all cautious people, we worry what might happen in the days that we cannot yet see. As Edmund Burke memorably put it, a sensible citizen does not wait for an “actual grievance” to intrude upon his liberty, but prefers to “augur misgovernment at a distance; and snuff the approach of tyranny in every tainted breeze.” Barack Obama’s extra-constitutional transgressions have been many and they have been alarming, and I do not regret my opposition to them. But their result, thus far at least, has been the marginal undermining of democracy and not the plain indulgence of evil. Will our executives’ excesses always take that form? Is it wise to appraise our current situation and to conclude that it will obtain for the rest of time?
To listen to the manner in which our friends on the left now talk about Donald Trump is to suspect that it is not. Time and time again, Trump has been compared to Hitler, to Mussolini, to George Wallace, and to Bull Connor. Time and time again, self-described “liberals” have recoiled at the man’s praise for internment, at his disrespect for minorities and dissenters, and at his enthusiasm for torture and for war crimes. Time and time again, it has been predicted — not without merit — that, while Trump would almost certainly lose a general election, an ill-timed recession or devastating terrorist attack could throw all bets to the curb. If one were to take literally the chatter that one hears on MSNBC and the fear that one smells in the pages of the New York Times and of the Washington Post, one would have no choice but to conclude that the progressives have joined the conservatives in worrying aloud about the wholesale abuse of power.
Does the left regret supporting the things it does? Well, take a look at how they attacked the concept of opposing consideration of Supreme Court nominees late in a lame duck’s term. They don’t regret COINING that concept; they simply object to someone else using it.
I doubt they regret using the fear smear of “push granny off the cliff” when attacking those who opposed the oncoming failure of Obamacare… since they went ahead and passed legislation that did exactly that.
However, no doubt they fear a Republican that might come in and act as Obama has, though. No doubt liberals who have poo-pooed the outcry about the IRS scandal or DOJ charges against journalists to thinking differently than they would not like a Republican that acted towards them in the same way. But, then again, who would?
That’s all they think about. They don’t regret committing these wrongs. They just don’t want them turned around on them.